Titan (Warhammer 40,000)

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In the Warhammer 40,000 fictional universe, a Titan is a huge humanoid fighting machine (mech).

In the game of Epic, an average Titan model can stand up to 7 cm high next to a standard human at around 4 mm. In contrast, games of Warhammer 40,000 have the smallest of Imperial Titans that can stand up to a huge 36 cm tall. This equates to a Titan standing at a height of 35 meters next to a 2-metre tall man. In the Winter Assault expansion to the computer game , the head alone of an Imperator Titan is at least 12 metres tall. It should be pointed out that Imperators are the largest of the Imperial titans.

A Titan is roughly human shaped, with two legs, a massive torso and a hunched head. Main weaponry is carried in the arms, with additional weapons mounted in the back carapace. These configurations vary from Titan to Titan, and several designs (called patterns) of most Titans exist.

Contents

1 Imperial Titans

1.1 Imperial Titan Weaponry and Defenses
1.2 Imperial Titan Construction
1.3 Imperial Titan Crew
1.4 Standard Template Construct Titans

2 Chaos Titans
3 Ork Gargants
4 Eldar Titans
5 Tyranid Bio-Titans
6 References

Imperial Titans

The Titan forces of the Imperium of Man are an independent fighting force organised into Titan Legions based on Forge Worlds. In the background they are described as standing between thirty to seventy meters tall, sometimes larger and come in a variety of size classes such as the Warhound, Reaver, Warlord and Emperor-class.

Warhound Titans are the scouts or flanking elements of a Titan force. Unlike other Imperial Titans, the Warhound has a canine-like appearance, with a vaguely dog-like head and retrograde legs. As a scout, the Warhound is comparatively lightly armed and armored (although it is still fearsome compared to standard tanks and related vehicles). To compensate for this, unlike other larger Titans who act alone, Warhounds are normally deployed in formations (called packs) of at least two members.

The Warhound Titan is the only Imperial Titan that has received an official model kit from Forge World in the scale used by the Warhammer 40,000 game-system. Available in several patterns and classes, the Forge World produced kits stand over 10 inches tall when assembled, making them roughly 16.5 meters in real life. In the early 1990's, Mike Biasi Studios was given the license to create various Titans in Warhammer 40,000 scale, including a Warhound, a Reaver and various Eldar titans. These models were later re-produced by Armorcast and Epicast.

The Reaver Titan is a medium class Titan. Most patterns and combat configurations are equipped with a powerful multiple-missile rack on the carapace, and a heavy weapon on each arm. Reaver Titans are considerably more durable than Warhounds, and in game terms are able to absorb roughly twice the amount of damage of a Warhound. Reavers stand just under twice the height of a Warhound, reaching approximately 30 or so meters in height.

The weapon loadout on Reavers is quite varied, and they are able to carry some of the most powerful Titan weaponry. Unlike Warhounds, Reavers can also carry close combat weapons, allowing them to deal with a more varied set of circumstances. However, it is suggested that Reavers are becoming very rare in the Imperium, and as is with some Imperial technology, it is possible that the secrets to their manufacture have been lost. For these reasons, Reavers are usually used in fire-support situations, in leiu of dueling with other Titans.

Warlord Titans are the heaviest Titans in general use, cited as being thirty metres tall. Warlords have a great variety of weapon fits and there is even a specialist class, the rare Psi-Titans, where psychic weaponry is added. It is Noted that The Titan "Imperius Dictato" of the "Titan" Graphic Novels Is a Warlord Class Titan.

Warlord Titans are only slightly larger than the aging Reaver class, but are able to withstand considerably more damage. They are also capable of wielding the heaviest Titan weapons. It has been suggested that they are the most common Titan in use, and many forge worlds have the facilities and ability to construct them.

The rare Emperor class is sub-divided in two classes, the Imperator and the Warmonger. Of these two superheavy machines, the Imperator is a more general-purpose assault machine, whereas the Warmonger is a dedicated fire-support Titan with advanced fire control and targeting facilities. Emperor class Titans are very rare, and have the power to utterly destroy many weaker Titans.

Imperial Titan Weaponry and Defenses

The weaponry carried by Titans are usually dedicated to the complete destruction of high-priority and well armoured enemies, such as fortresses or armoured divisions. Titan weapons are divided into two rough categories:

Scout Titan Weapons are weapons normally fitted to light Titans such as the Warhound. Rarely found on larger Titans, these are designed to destroy light to medium vehicles quickly, and to deal with huge masses of troops. Below are some examples of such weapons:

Vulcan Mega-Bolter - A Titan-grade bolt gun, comprised of a pair of rotary, very high calibre rapid-fire bolt guns. Capable of devastating infantry and destroying many vehicles.
Inferno Cannon - An uprated version of the flame cannons mounted on vehicles, and capable of similar destruction to the Vulcan Mega-Bolter
Turbo Laser-Destroyer - A Titan level las weapon. Very destructive compared to most vehicle and infantry level las weapons.

Battle Titan Weapons are much larger and more destructive weapons mounted commonly on Reaver and Warlord Titans. Most are designed to destroy other Titans, or bring devastation to fortifications.

Gatling Blaster - A larger projectile weapon commonly found on battle Titans. Unlike the Vulcan Mega-Bolter, it is able to damage and destroy other Titans.
Plasma Blastgun - The lightest plasma based Titan weapon, and the most powerful weapon that can be mounted on the Warhound. It is slow to fire, but its intense plasma burst is able to vaporize smaller vehicles and very seriously damage Titans.
Melta Cannon - An upsized melta weapon (fusion weapon) mounted on Warlord Titans. Notably short ranged, but incredibly effective at penetrating armor and destroying Titans.
Volcano Cannon - The largest normal las weapon, the Volcano Cannon has an extremely long range, is very effective at penetrating armor, and at destroying Titans. A favored weapon of the Warlord and certain Reaver patterns.

Titan Defenses - Little information has been provided on the defensive mechanisms mounted on Titans. The most common and obvious of such installments is known as a 'Void Shield'. These shields are able to absorb destructive energy and render it harmless, although there is a limit to the amount they can withstand before dropping. The Void Shield projectors are directly controlled by the Princeps, and he can decide to leave the fields up after they have absorbed dangerous amounts of energy. Although this can allow extra protection, there is an increased likelihood of burning out the projector. Titans are normally loaded with several Void Shield screens to maximize the likelihood of at least one shield remaining up during a barrage, and larger Titans may have as many as six or more fields protecting it.

Larger Titans are also commonly equipped with defensive weapons to protect themselves against infantry and aircraft that cannot be targetted with conventional weaponry. Carapace-mounted multilasers are often employed in this respect, as are more exotic weapons for dealing with aircraft.

Imperial Titan Construction

Very little is known about the methods used in the construction of Imperial Titans. It is known that many Forge Worlds are capable of producing their own Titans (and some have their own patterns and legions). Of said Forge Worlds, it is known that Mars and Lucius have their own patterns (these patterns are provided as model kits by Forge World), and it is likely that other large Forge Worlds such as Ryza and Gryphonne IV do as well.

Often times, the Imperium does not have the means to build new items, as the knowledge of their construction is lost. Titans however were not built using STC templates, and as such the Adeptus Mechanicus knows fully how to build at least some of the Titan variants. As the process of building any machine requires a complex ceremony and rituals, it is probable that the construction of a Titan is an immense undertaking, and would require decades or centuries to complete, requiring extremely experienced and talented fabricators and the purest and most blessed materials.

Imperial Titan Crew

The 'Captain' of a Titan is called the Princeps, a rare individual in that he can retain his sanity after connecting with the 'Machine Spirit' of the Titan. The Princeps controls the Titan by means of a mental link device. Using this, the Princeps merges his/her consciousness with the Titan's sentient machine spirit. After doing so, he can guide its movements and weapons as though it were an extension of his/her body, and provides a greatly heightened perception of the battlefield. It requires a strong will to maintain this connection, and Titans can go out of control on rampages of destruction should the Princeps fail to maintain dominance.

There has also been noted rare instances where a Princeps has died while connected to the Titan, thus creating a ghost of themselves that remains inside the Titan's 'machine spirit'. This often referred to as a "ghost" in the link.

The Princeps is located in the head, along with several system controllers called Moderati. The number of moderati depends on the size of the Titan, and their duties are relegated to monitoring and maintaining weapons, as well as keeping track of Auspex (a radar like device) readings.

Further crew includes engineers (Techpriests) for repair work and blessings, and cyborg-like organisms (servitors) set on the more mundane tasks like manipulation of controls and monitoring of Auspexes.

Standard Template Construct Titans

In the novel Dark Adeptus (Counter, 2006), there is a mention of a Standard Template Construct (STC) Titan, which is far superior to the Titans the Adeptus Mechanicus are familiar with. The STC was pure but the Machine Spirit in it had been corrupted after hundreds of years in the warp.

The difference between STC Titans and Imperial Titans, is that its head is not hunched, but is instead upright. The weapon capabilities are more vast than standard Titans. It is rumoured that the STC was complete and that, had it been in Imperial hands before corruption, the universe itself would have bowed before the Imperium.

Chaos Titans

During the Horus Heresy, nearly half of the Adeptus Mechanicus, including several Titan Legions, turned to Chaos, taking their mighty war machines with them. Chaos Titans are usually similar to their Imperial counterparts, but their long exposure to the warping influence of Chaos has changed many of them. In some cases, the crew has merged with their machine, making it impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. Other crews have given themselves and their weapons over to one of the four great powers of Chaos.

The most infamous of these monster war machines was the Dies Irae, which had stormed the battlements of the Emperor's palace during the siege of Terra. It was destroyed in the Iron Warriors campaign against the Imperial citadel of Hydra Cordatus after it engaged in a battle with the Warlord Titan, Honoris Causa.

Formerly a special class of Chaos Titan existed (Andrews, 1994), known as the Banelord Titan. This was a warped Warlord Titan dedicated to the Chaos God Khorne with a long tail ending in a large cannon, another cannon protruding from the daemonic head's mouth, and three special weapons; a Havoc Missile Rack, Hellstrike Cannon and Doomfist.

Ork Gargants

"S'gonna be dead shooty, wiv loadza gunz all over." -- Boss-Mek Badlug One-Leg

The Ork equivalent of a titan is called a Gargant. Gargants are as much idols of the savage Ork gods, Gork and Mork, as they are engines of destruction. Big Meks receive a divine vision of sorts from Gork (or possibly Mork), and set out to bring that vision to life in the artistic medium of thick armor plates, smoke-belching engines, and lots and lots of very large guns. This quickly spreads amongst other Big Meks in the area, and soon Gargants spring up all over the place. The construction of Gargants is one of the typical signs of an impending WAAAGH! from an Ork-held system.

In an Ork warband, there can exist Gargants and Gargant-like warmachines all the way from single-man Killa Kans to the vast armored behemoths of the Mega-Gargants. From smallest to largest, the most typical machines of these type include:

Stompas are not Titans proper, but rather large armored fighting vehicles. Built into roughly Ork-shaped effigies and armed with both long- and short-range weaponry, they are used as equivalents to heavy tanks. Leading the Stompa mobs are Supa-Stompas, slightly larger and being commanded by a Mek with considerable status.

Gargants and Great Gargants are the archetypal Ork Titans, massive armored behemoths that shake the ground with every ponderous step. Studded with monstrous batteries of guns, each Gargant is crewed by dozens of Meks and Orks, and hundreds of Gretchin slaves, trying to keep the haphazard device together long enough to crush their enemies.

The rare Mega-Gargant is among the largest ground vehicles ever built by any armed forces, with only the Imperator and Warmonger titans rivaling it in size. Though slow, the onslaught they can unleash is enough to level cities and turn even the stoutest defences into rubble at the blink of an eye.

Armament-wise, Ork Gargants are an extremely varied lot, no two ever being alike. Thanks to the frenzied imaginations of the Mekboyz building them, Ork weapons tend to be haphazard, unreliable and noisy. When they work, however, they can inflict gruesome damage. Gargants are commonly equipped with at least one close-combat weapon, because charging in and bashing heads is considered to be a very "Orky" thing to do.

Orks do not rely on auto-systems to the same extent as other races, and Gargants carry a large crew of both Orks and Gretchins. The crew is led by a Kaptin, who relays orders through a body of officers. A speaking-tube is the preferred method of communication within a Gargant. Each officer is in charge of one section of the Gargant, be it a weapon, the magazine, the engine room, or any other chambers. Under the officer is a crew of Orks and Gretchins who carry out the orders passed down to them. Repair crews are composed of Gretchins, whose smaller build suits them to crawling through cramped spaces armed with wrenches and oily rags.

Eldar Titans

Eldar Titans are quick and nimble machines of war, thinly armored but protected by advanced holographic field generators. Despite their frailty, Eldar titans can pack a mean punch, and can move about the battlefield with frightening speed, thanks to their jump jets.

There are three types of Eldar titans:

The Revenant is a relatively light warmachine, roughly equivalent to an Imperial Warhound, though much more agile. They are best suited for lightning-fast raids on enemy lines, using their speed to retreat before a counteroffensive can be mounted.

The Phantom is a more massive warmachine capable of taking on its Imperial equivalents. What makes Phantom titans distinctive from those of lesser races is their crew. In addition to the living, the souls and memories of ancient Eldar warriors are maintained in the wraithbone matrix of the Titan.

The Warlock is a refinement of the Phantom. Its wraithbone core hosts the spirits of late Seers and Warlocks, focusing their power into a near-unstoppable engine of destruction.

Tyranid Bio-Titans

Bio-Titans are little more than exceptionally large Tyranid biomorphs, and are considerably faster and more agile than the mechanical war machines of other races, and include smaller creatures such as the tank-sized Heirodule and the burrowing Trygon, and large bio-titans such as the winged Harridan and the vast and terrifying Hierophant. Bio-Titans are deployed in the final stages of the assimilation of a planet into the hive-fleets biomass.

A specialist breed of bio-titan is the Dominatrix, a powerful Hive node that can use its malign intellect to command the hordes of lessers around itself with ghastly efficiency. In the hierarchy of Tyranids, they are second only to the shipbound Norn-Queens themselves.

References

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Warhammer 40,000 Articles
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